


Blood Moon Rising

by Seldavia



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 22:10:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17252294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seldavia/pseuds/Seldavia
Summary: Link has awakened with no memory, and no way to defend himself. He may be in the land of his birth but remembers nothing about it, not even what food is safe to eat. He thinks he is hallucinating at the first blood moon, then realizes he is in very real danger. Inspired by fanart by Merwild on Tumblr.





	Blood Moon Rising

Perhaps he should not have assumed that if you kill something, it always stays dead. He himself was an exception to that rule.

Link had been too tired to think of all the thousands of possibilities, by the time he had finally beaten the last of the Bokoblins to death with its own club. He dumped the weapons he had managed to procure over three days and nights since his re-awakening, next to the fire and roast meat he now claimed as his own. Another club, a rusty sword, even a tree branch for dire emergencies. A handful of apples and mushrooms. He didn’t even have a knife to cut the roasted meat; instead he gnawed at the roast until it sated his hunger. Then he fell back on his back next to the fire. Fire would keep him warm; fire would keep him safe. It was one of the few things he remembered. Within moments he was asleep.

He slept all through the next day. In the afternoon, the sky clouded over. Drops of rain began to fall, sizzling in the embers of the fire. Thunder rolled off in the distance and the rain grew heavier. Link’s eyes fluttered open, and he struggled to rise, wet and stiff.

At first he thought the fire was still burning, seeing what looked like embers rising into the air. But as the rain fizzled out and the clouds began to part, he noticed the sky colored in a strange hue. Like sunset, but strangely restless. The air felt taut, like just before a storm, even though the rain was on its way out. Link raised himself to a sitting position and ran his hands through his hair. Had one of those mushrooms been poisonous? He had no way of knowing…

Embers still rose from the ground, even where there was no fire. Link shook his head, trying to clear it, but his vision seemed to deteriorate. Wisps of smoke seemed to curl above him. The clouds roiled across the sky.

And then…the moon.

It was red. A bright, blood red, the shade of blood that springs from a new wound. Just as he foisted the blame for his hallucinations on the mushrooms, he heard someone speak. That same voice that had awakened him.

_Link…the Blood Moon rises. At this point Ganon’s power is at its greatest, and monsters that you have killed will be resurrected. Link…please be careful!_

“What?!” he barked out to the night sky, even though he didn’t expect an answer. In the next moment he cried out in pain; an arrow had buried itself in his left upper arm.

He whirled round to see the Bokoblins he had killed a day ago sprint toward his weapons, snatching them up and brandishing them as they moved forward. And in addition to them, the bones of a much larger creature pulled itself together from the dirt, walking forward on shaky limbs, carrying what looked like the jawbone of something larger still.

One of the Bokoblins sliced the air just beyond his nose, and he stumbled back. Then he turned around and ran. There was nothing else for it; he had no way of defending himself, no way to fight back. Holding his hand over the wounded arm, he could feel the heat of the blood spreading faster as he ran.

He looked back to see the monsters giving up and heading back to camp. He managed a small snarl of frustration. That was _his_ camp! He had already won it once; now he had to do it again? And with no weapons or food, either!

_Enough. Focus on the task at hand_. He must have gotten training from somewhere, because using either sword or bow had been effortless. Something in the back of his mind helped him keep calm, told him this was nothing compared to what he had seen before.

First, he needed a safe place to think things over. Not knowing any other places, he made his way back to the Shrine of Resurrection. Once inside, he sat down, gritted his teeth, and twisted the arrow out of his arm. He raised his hand to throw it away, but thought better of it. He set it down on the floor and tore a piece from the already ragged clothing he was wearing to wrap around the wound.

_I wish I’d known about that Blood Moon sooner._ Of course, even if he had managed to find someone to ask, it wouldn’t have occurred to him to do so anyway. Perhaps it had been going on so long that people were used to it, and didn’t even venture outdoors when it rose.

Link stared down at the bloody arrow. It was all he had. And an arrow was no good without a bow. _Think. You’re going to need more than a couple tree branches to get your camp back_.

He remembered seeing a bow at a nearby camp. There had been monsters there, too, and at the time he had not bothered to fight for the bow, a crude object that was little more than a stick with string. But it would be better to fight with a bow, no matter how crude, if he could keep his distance. Otherwise they would all gang up on him.

Exhausted, he nodded off. The wound needed to scab over, at least. He could spare a few hours…

The wound was too painful for him to sleep for very long. He got up and headed slowly for the camp he remembered. The bow was still there; as well as the monsters.

Still, they were all red Bokoblins, weak enough to take out with a fist if it came to that. Link scanned the ground and came up with a few heavy, round stones that fit nicely in his palm. He sneaked over to the side where there were a couple trees and some tall grass.

The monsters paid no attention to him. Link rose from kneeling to a crouch, and flung the stone as hard as he could without moving his wounded arm. It hit one of them smack in the face and laid it out on the ground.

The other two snatched up their weapons; one took the bow, the other a burning stick. They sniffed the ground, searching for his scent. Link froze; if he moved, the scent could travel further on the air. Thinking quickly, he threw one of the rocks away from the monsters, intentionally hitting the other side of the camp. It had the effect he wanted; they turned and shambled over to inspect the noise.

He threw the third stone; it landed a bullseye on the back of Flaming Stick’s head and rendered him unconscious. Unfortunately, Bow Bokoblin saw the direction it had come from, and came running over. It spotted Link and raised its bow.

Link snapped to his full height and threw his last stone as hard as he could. He winced as a flash of pain ripped through his arm, but the stone found its mark. Link picked up the bow and scanned the campsite. He found a few apples and a pleasant surprise – four unused arrows.

Link raised his head to the sky; he smelled rain in the air. That could be a good thing; it would be harder for the monsters to hear or smell him. They could probably smell the blood from his injured arm. He heard thunder rumble in the distance; okay, not so good, unless the monster that stole his rusty sword was dumb enough to try fighting him in a thunderstorm. Link would have to give that one a wide berth.

Link made his way back to the other camp. It was pouring by the time he got there, and even if they had relit the fire, it had long gone out. He could make out their outlines in the flashes of lightning; not just the Bokoblins, but the rattling bag of bones was also wandering around the campsite. Link ground his teeth; arrows might not work on that thing.

From a small hill downwind of the campsite, he blinked the rain out of his eyes and pushed his wet hair back from his face. Drawing the bow, he lined up his shot. The arrow few true and struck one of the three Bokoblins dead.

The others jumped to their feet, gathering weapons. So now the element of surprise was lost, but he’d managed to get one of them. He lined up the next shot and felled the next one. A small smile tugged at his lips; this would be easy.

The smile dropped from his face as he heard rustling behind him; he whirled round to see yet another one of them behind him, raising its club with a shriek.

Link shouted; his arrow went wide. He stumbled down the hill and landed in the middle of the campsite. The other creatures made yells of triumph and made straight for him. He glanced wildly about as the next flash of lightning blasted everything into sharp focus. The only weapon nearby was the rusty sword. He had no other choice.

He hefted it in his hand and swung at the first Bobkoblin to reach him. It didn’t slice well, but it did lift the creature up and send it sailing into a nearby stream. It did not come back. The second of the two charged, and knocked his feet out from under him with the club. Link felt the presence of something very large looming over him; he rolled quickly to the side and just missed having his head smashed by the bony monster’s giant jawbone.

Yelling with fury, Link beat the small creature into the ground with his rusty sword. As he dodged the animated bones, he felt a strange tingling feeling, starting in his hands and feet and moving up to his hair. Instinct more than knowledge pushed him to shove the sword into the ground and jump clear.

A dazzling claw of lightning leaped from the sky and shattered upon the ground, with an earth-shaking blast that he felt more than heard. Finding himself on his knees, he staggered upward to see Bones still walking toward him. Link cursed; of course it missed getting hit. He dodged out of the way as it slammed its weapon down into the ground.

The lightning had started the campfire again, as well as lit one of the Bokoblin clubs. Link snatched this up and charged the monster, bellowing. He hit Bones in the leg, again and again, until the creature staggered back. Then Link rushed to the other side and hit its legs out from underneath it. The creature fell into a pile of bones and Link fell to his knees beside it, gasping for breath.

And yet…the bones rolling on the ground kept rolling, then switched direction and rolled back together. Link stared in disbelief as the creature wandered around, searching for its head. It would have been comical if the situation were not so dire. Finally Bones found its head, jammed it back on its body, and turned back to Link.

The lightning was dying down now, and Link decided to take a chance with the rusty sword. He hit Bones again and again, and succeeded once more in splitting it apart. Yet it would somehow reassemble itself, over and over again. Link ground his teeth in frustration; something other than the Blood Moon was bringing this creature back to life. So how was he supposed to kill it?

_The head!_

It was a long shot, but Link didn’t have any other ideas. He scrambled up a nearby tree and waited for Bones in the upper branches. The creature shambled toward him, raising its weapon, its intent clear; it would slice the tree in half just to get to him.

At the last moment, Link leaped forward, sword raised. _“HIYAAAAA!”_ He brought the sword down on Bones’s skull with all his might. The skull shattered, and the bones tumbled to the ground. They did not move again.

Panting, exhausted, Link stumbled back to the campfire. He lay back against a fallen log, and he spied his apples and mushrooms still lying under the half-eaten roast meat. Link gathered them up and stuffed his face. They both quenched his thirst and sated his hunger.

The rain stopped, and the fire burned brighter. Link threw one of the clubs onto it for fuel. He gathered up another club, the rusty sword, and a few stones. He limped over to where Bones had dropped its giant jawbone and, picking it up, dragged it back to the campfire.

He lay down with his weapons between him and the fire, his arms wrapped around the jawbone. Finally, sleep.

He slept like the dead. He slept knowing that soon, he would have to rise again, and continue his quest. At least he didn’t have to worry about another Blood Moon for a while.


End file.
